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Hello and how are you? I got a TON done this weekend – it’s a great feeling! My goal is to get a few of these totally productive weekends under my belt so I can spend the fall ones picking apples and pumpkins. (YAY!)

So I mentioned Friday that I stopped by one of my favorite antique stores last week. “Store” doesn’t really fit this place though – it’s really a warehouse with two floors of vintage goodies. Huge! (You can see more about it here.) Like I said last week, the prices are higher than I remember last time, but I did find a couple goodies.

I saw this sign and loved it:

I thought it would be a funky addition somewhere, I just couldn’t think of a place to put it. (It’s big!) When I posted it on Instagram someone mentioned using it in the dining room turned library, which I thought was brilliant – but there wasn’t a spot for it in there because it was so big.

So I left it there and kept thinking. And the next day I came up with the spot! Our laundry room turned mud room is awaiting it’s redo and I’m finally pulling my plan together. We needed a good spot to put school papers and other important stuff so I had an idea to use the sign. I went back and got it. ;)

It used to hang in my office but it was looking out of place to me there. It looked just as out of place here. ;) And the thing was, I never changed stuff out on it. Most of those papers on it have been there since the Bub was in preschool.

SO. I had a plan in mind for this vintage sign (not sure how vintage it really is but bear with me). The only issue was that one part of it had been painted over (sloppily) and then someone wrote over that:

It was just written in pencil but it wouldn’t come off. So I did a little DIY and sanded it down just a bit:

Then taped off a large rectangle with my delicate Frogtape:

I used delicate just in case the lettering or paint wasn’t on there well, but there were no problems at all when I pulled it off.

I have a color scheme in mind for the room and it comes from a rug I bought months ago. Now I can’t find the rug, which is awesome. I know it’s here somewhere, so I’m going ahead with my color scheme. If I remember right (gah), there are deep blues and I’m pretty sure green in the rug, so I used a blue to fill in the tape:

I used a sample of a chalk paint I had already – I got it free somewhere and can’t remember where. (I’m on a roll. Decrapifying is sucking my brain.)

Anyway. The paint is an Annie Sloan color called Napoleonic Blue and it’s a lovely deep blue. I loved how it looked with the green on there!

Next up was the part of my plan that would make this sign functional for us. I picked up some bulldog clips:

Initially I used an epoxy glue to secure them to the board but the back of each one wasn’t flush – so the glue wasn’t holding it on. Then I noticed there was a hole through the clip so I decided to just use screws to install them:

I just put a small screw under the clip part and then used my drill to get it in there. It worked great! I wanted to age the clips to look older like the sign, but when I did a search online I realized I’d have to buy crazy industrial gloves and use eye protection and I wasn’t in the mood for all that. So they are new and shiny – for now anyway.

I gotta tell you – I hung it up and stood back and giggled because I loved it so much:

Ignore the paint samples on the wall that have been there for years. I’m not going with either one. ;)

OH, and try to ignore the bright yellow walls. I know, it’s hard.

I am using this for school papers that come in the door that I need to address – homework packets, forms that need to be filled out, etc. I’ve also clipped some receipts for returns up there so I know where to find them:

I was able to cover up the not-so-pretty spots and make it functional – a double win!

Fun, eh? I think so. Totally dig it. I’ll dig it even more when the rest of the room is changed up.

I took down the large magnetic board that used to hang at the end of the room, and finally took down the laundry room wording on the wall too:

You know, cause it hasn’t been a laundry room for about a year. ;)

Next up – paint! Now that I’ve figured out what I want to do in here I’m SO excited to get moving. Paint will go on the walls and the beadboard and then I’ll be installing new molding throughout the room (around doors and baseboards). THEN…the built ins – I can’t wait to get started!

I’m ready to be done with the yellow and black, that’s for sure. It’s kind of bittersweet for me though, because this was the first room redo I ever shared on my blog almost exactly five years ago. :) So cool.